Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is one of Bernstein’s finest opera recordings and still considered exemplary. Leonard Bernstein’s way of conducting this opera is unique and he makes orchestra and singers perform at their very best. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was the only German orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein regularly collaborated for many years and it has numbered among the top ten orchestras in the world. A star cast of singers with Peter Hofmann and Hildegard Behrens in the title roles, completes this exceptional semi-staged production. Bernstein’s 1981 recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is still considered an outstanding interpretation and has set the bar until this day. When he heard this performance Karl Böhm said, “Bernstein has conducted Tristan und Isolde the way that Wagner intended it to be conducted”.
Parsifal
In the words of Opern Welt, Sinopoli “conjures up sounds of exquisite beauty and compelling poignancy.” Wolfgang Wagner’s production emphasizes the celebratory character of the libretto, which harmonizes superbly with Sinopoli’s insistence on the poetry and mystery of the music. A major role in the staging is played by the lighting, which is used to create stunning effects such as the diffuse play of light and shadow at the illumination of the Holy Grail. One of the production’s most striking moments occurs when the director has Kundry unveil the Grail instead of dying. She thus takes full part in the Grail ceremony, displaying a feminism which, in the Bayreuth context, is truly revolutionary.
Parsifal
Parsifal is Wagner’s last opera. He named it “Consecration Play for the Stage,” and in so doing, tried to give the proper framework to what is in almost all aspects a sacred Christian play with music. Wagner also included mythology, mysticism and ancient Indian ideas in this work, whose origins he drew from Wolfram von Eschenbach’s famous courtly epic “Parsival”. But even earlier sources related to the legend of the Holy Grail were used by Wagner as a source for his poetic work. For 30 years no theater other than Bayreuth was allowed to perform “Parsifal” by order of Wagner. Only in 1914 did the work spread across the globe. Wagner achieved the essentially sacred atmosphere of the music through an instrumentation that evokes organ registration and often uses the instruments in groups (woodwinds, brass, strings). The leitmotivic work is less dense in Parsifal than in the Ring of the Nibelung. The brilliant songfulness of the world of the Grail is set against chromatic harmonies which, e.g. in the prelude to the third act, anticipate the twelve-tone music of the New Vienna School. The musical direction of this performance from the Bayreuth Festival is in the hands of Horst Stein; the stage director is Wolfgang Wagner, who also designed the sets. In the lead roles are renowned Wagner singers Siegfried Jerusalem, Hans Sotin, Bernd Weikl and Eva Randova.
Leonard Bernstein: Wagner – Tristan und Isolde
This is one of the most beautiful and brilliant recordings of Wagner´s Tristan und Isolde and it´s first time available on DVD and Bluray. Leonard Bernstein’s way of conducting this opera is unique and he makes orchestra and singers perform at their very best. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was the only German orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein regularly collaborated for many years and it has numbered among the top ten orchestras in the world. A star cast of singers with Peter Hofmann and Hildegard Behrens in the title roles, completes this exceptional semi-staged production. Bernstein’s 1981 recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is still considered an outstanding interpretation and has set the bar until this day. When he heard this performance Karl Böhm said, “Bernstein has conducted Tristan und Isolde the way that Wagner intended it to be conducted”.
Parsifal
A timelessly classical Parsifal from the 1998 Bayreuth Festival in a mystically poetic staging that exerts an unbroken fascination not least as a result of its expressive lighting effects. Under the direction of the great Wagner conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, the four main roles are taken by Poul Elming, Linda Watson, Falk Struckmann and Hans Sotin – one of the strongest line-ups in Bayreuth´s more recent history. “Giuseppe Sinopoli coaxed an outstanding performance from the Festival Orchestra and Chorus, throwing light on the elaborate score from an agreeable distance and investing the music with a meditatively flowing quality rather than the usual bombast” (Opernglas)
Haydn, Missa in tempore belli (English introduction included)
The title of the work “Missa in tempore belli” (Mass in Time of War) recalls the war conducted by the Austrian Emperor Franz against France, whose young general Bonaparte was then rushing from one victory to the next. In August 1796 Vienna had to mobilize its troops. The subtitle “Paukenmesse” or Kettledrum Mass, comes from the prominent timpani and brass instruments in the last section of the Mass. The dramatic military sounds are made all the more striking as Haydn transforms the music into a fervent prayer for peace. Leonard Bernstein led this performance of the Mass at the Basilica of Ottobeuren on 30 September 1984 with the Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio. The soloists were Judith Blegen (soprano), Brigitte Fassbaender (alto), Claes H. Ahnsjö (tenor) and Hans Sotin (bass). Bernstein said: “How does it feel to conduct a Haydn mass in this extraordinary, deeply impressive setting of the Ottobeuren Basilica? It feels perfect. If I had to imagine this mass visually and translate it into architectural terms, from one art to another, or in decorative terms – this is what I would imagine. It is the Haydn Mass.”